


Absence

by UglyJackal



Series: Final Fantasy Shenanigans [7]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-10-01 18:16:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20362966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UglyJackal/pseuds/UglyJackal
Summary: ‘Throw wide the gate so we may pass.’





	Absence

‘ _ Only you. _ ’

A voice beyond Jack’s understanding, beyond his conscious thought, beyond his own twitching ears hovered around him in this place of pure darkness. He could see no form, physical or otherwise, that would suggest the origin of the voice.

‘What’s the matter?’

Raubahn’s voice.

Jack didn’t truly know what the matter was. He felt like he was everywhere and nowhere all at the same time, in a place between worlds, in a place where he should not have been. He felt nauseous, his stomach cramping as his vision swam with the flashes of his friends clutching their heads, experiencing this same soulless pain, he could only assume.

He heard talk of voices from Alisaie and spies from Merlwyb and Kan-E-Senna. If only it was spies, at least a few spells of black magic would be their solution.

But they didn’t even know what  _ this _ was.

‘ _ Throw wide the gate so we may pass _ .’

And then with blinking eyes, he could see again. The pain in his head was gone and he was able to breathe without his lungs feeling like they were about to fall out of his chest. He looked down at his paws and, with deep breaths, back up at Alisaie, Y’shtola and Thancred, who looked just as confused as the rest of the room.

And then Thancred collapsed from his chair.

While they stood outside under the blanket of dark, while the messenger told them of Thancred’s condition, while Kan-E-Senna told him that his soul had been ripped from his flesh, Jack could only think about Urianger.

He did not care if what had harmed Thancred possessed no physical body, he would rip it limb from limb, muscle from muscle, bone from bone, if it even  _ dared _ to touch his beloved, Urianger. And he thought that Cid would be of much the same mind.

So when they arrived back at the Rising Stones, Jack was more than overjoyed to be greeted with the sight of his boyfriend.

‘Uri, you’re alright!’ he cried as he wrapped his arms around the elezen’s slender shoulders. 

‘As are you, my dearest, thank the Twelve,’ Urianger mumbled against the spotted fur that crept out of Jack’s robes on his chest.

The hrothgar stayed next to his boyfriend while he and Y’shtola spoke of aether, such a subject that Jack did not understand. His tail waved contentedly as he settled into the knowledge that his Uri was safe and sound.

And then a spasm rocked his body.

‘The voice… it calleth to me once more,’ he gasped, after a moment of piercing silence rocked between them.

And after the pain had passed, throughout which Jack had clung right to the elezen beside him, Y’shtola lay limp on the stone ground and Urianger in Jack’s own arms.

‘No… no, no, no!’ the hrothgar snarled, voice wavering in his fear and his grief. 

He fell to his knees and lowered Urianger to the ground gently. He could hear Alisaie begging with their lifeless forms to wake up, to open their eyes, but he could not bring himself to care for her.

Crystalline tears fell from his furred jaw as he held Urianger’s head to his chest, silently wishing that it was all just a bad dream.

‘Please, my love,’ he murmured, his hushed tones reverberating through his chest, ‘I don’t ever want to live without you.’

But live without him, he must. For now, at least. For the Warrior of Light could not just let sleeping Scions lie, not when they had work to do.


End file.
